As the race to get to Mars heats up, new research suggests that dormant life could be hiding in the red planet’s frozen water.

If found, these microbes could someday be brought back to life, according to a team of scientists from Arizona and the Netherlands.

The theory is based on evidence that Mars was hit by a huge flood millions of years ago when a large ice-covered lake cracked open.

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Victor Baker at the University of Arizona in Tucson and Manuel Roda at Utrecht University recently made a detailed study of a Martian crater called Aram Chaos (pictured). They believe microbes in this region could have been 'frozen' after they were brought to the surface millions of years ago by a flood in the region

MARS' WARMER AND WETTER PAST

Evidence of water on Mars dates back to the Mariner 9 mission, which arrived on Mars in 1971.

Mariner 9 imaging revealed clues of water erosion in river beds and canyons as well as weather fronts and fogs.

Viking
orbiters that followed caused a revolution in theories about water on
Mars by revealing how floods broke through dams, carved deep
valleys, eroded grooves into bedrock, and traveled thousands of
kilometres.

Mars
is currently in the middle of an ice age, so liquid water cannot exist
on its surface at the present time. However, the planet seems to have
been warmer and wetter in the past.

In June last year, Curiosity rover found 'powerful evidence' that water good enough to drink once flowed on Mars.

In
September, the first scoop of soil analysed by Curiosity revealed that
fine materials on the surface of the planet contain two per cent water
by weight.

Today, Mars' polar caps are known to be mostly water ice. Frozen water has also been detected just under the surface at mid-latitudes.

But the planet was once a far more watery world. Several huge channels, dating from a time when Mars was just starting to evolve into the cold desert it is today, can be found on the planet’s deep chasms and impact craters.

Victor Baker at the University of Arizona in Tucson and Manuel Roda at Utrecht University recently made a detailed study of a Martian crater called Aram Chaos.

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This crater has a channel 6.2 miles (10 km) and 1.2 miles (2 km) deep, which would have required almost 320,0000 ft3 (90,000 km3) of water to have flowed through it in a month.

The researchers believe that a lake filled the crater when Mars was warmer. As the planet cooled, the lake froze solid and was covered in a layer of rock, according to a by Lisa Grossman in New Scientist.

However, the scientists argue that at the same time, geothermal energy warmed the ice from below, creating a liquid layer.

Over thousands of years, the weakened sediment collapsed, breaking the ice and letting water gush to the planet’s surface.

Today, Mars' polar caps (northern cap pictured) are known to be mostly frozen water ice. Frozen water has also been detected just under the surface at mid-latitudes where meteorite impacts have uncovered it

This, according to the researchers, means that any microbial life in the liquid lake may have become dormant as the water refroze on an icy Mars.

‘Maybe these outflow channels are places where these dormant organisms came into a living state and would then have gone dormant again,’ Professor Baker told New Scientist.

‘Microbes could be waiting for us to drill a hole and sample ice and bring them back to life.’

On Earth, at least two types of bacteria have been found to happily live beneath a glacier in Mars-like temperatures.

In a 2012 study, the bacteria—Chryseobacterium and Paenisporosarcina—showed signs of respiration in ice designed to simulate as closely as possible the temperatures and nutrient content found at the bottom of Arctic and Antarctic glaciers.

Researchers at Penn State University found that organisms could survive at temperatures ranging from -33 °C to -4.4°C .

COULD SUPER BUGS ON EARTH HIKE A TRIP TO MARS?

Super bugs from Earth could soon hitch a ride into space, arrive on the red planet and trick scientists into thinking they are Martians.

This is according to Nasa researcher, Dr Kasthuri Venkateswaran, who has expressed serious concern that microbes may beat humans in the race to colonise Mars.

Dr Venkateswaran highlights recent research that shows some bugs are more resilient than first thought and could use protective mechanisms to survive deep space flights.

Currently, spacecraft landing on Mars or other planets where life might exist must meet requirements for a maximum allowable level of microbial life.

These acceptable levels were based on studies of how various life forms survive exposure to the challenges associated with space travel.

‘If you are able to reduce the numbers to acceptable levels, a proxy for cleanliness, the assumption is that the life forms will not survive under harsh space conditions,’ Dr Venkateswaran said.

However, spores of Bacillus pumilus have shown high resistance to techniques used to clean spacecraft, such as ultraviolet radiation and peroxide treatment.

When researchers exposed this hardy
organism to a simulated Mars environment that kills standard spores in
30 seconds, it survived 30 minutes.